Heading into Tuesday’s game, the Dallas Stars and Washington Capitals seemed to hold a decent number of things in common, most notably the fact that both headed into the contest ranked ninth in their respective conferences. Tuesday’s 5-0 Stars win makes a compelling argument that they’re going in very different directions, however.

Stars rise

For at least a brief period of time, Dallas moves to eighth place in the West, although the Phoenix Coyotes can move right back ahead of them by beating the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.

Even so, the Stars hold a game in hand once tonight’s games wrap up and are generally putting themselves in a solid position to make this season’s regular season finale against Phoenix a match for a playoff spot.

The Stars are currently on a three-game winning streak and five of their last six games, beginning an interesting five-game road trip with two victories.

Caps collapse

While the Stars get things together, the Capitals are falling apart. They’ve lost four games in a row and five of their last six games. The one bright side is that they were at least taking some points out of this tough stretch; four of their six games went to shootouts, although Washington only won one of them.

It might be tough for Caps fans to find bright sides (whether it’s fair to pin it on him or not, Alex Ovechkin’s oft-mentioned plus/minus sank to -36), but at least they get what could be a breather.

After facing tough Western Conference opponents and the Boston Bruins since March 18, they get a couple East opponents, although they play the next four games on the road. Assuming the margins aren’t too large for both teams, Friday’s road game against the Devils could be a make-or-break contest for the Capitals.

Then again, at this point, every game probably feels at least a little bit like that … and it’s mostly been cracks forming for the Caps lately.

Minnesota Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk has been the most difficult goalies to score against this season. Leave it to a high-level player like Leon Draisaitl to make it look this, well, “easy.”

Draisaitl scored his 13th goal of 2016-17 by capping this pretty give-and-go play with Benoit Pouliot. You can see the frustration from Dubnyk at the end of the tally, as if he was saying “How was I supposed to stop that?” (though probably with more colorful language).

Draisaitl came into Friday with five goals and three assists in his last five games, so he’s been almost unstoppable lately.